Chapter 61

I tore through the rough forest path at a run. The trees were thick, the weather so dim I could barely see a step ahead, and still I ran without stopping.

I didn’t even blink. A full sprint after so long was burning through a lot of energy.

My thighs hurt.

It had been a while since I’d run on a road this crude; my ankles felt the strain too.

Ah, I should have focused a little more on training.

The regret flickered and passed.

‘Where is it?’

Even as I thought it, my legs had to keep moving.

My eyes had to search the ground, not the way ahead.

‘Where.’

What I wanted to see wasn’t the road.

It was a line scored on the ground.

A spirit trace.

I was following the mark left by a soul.

The overcast had filled the world with yin. The traces were far clearer than usual.

‘Strange.’

Even so, they were excessively clear.

‘And there are a lot.’

The number of spirit traces was oddly excessive.

On top of that, there were many wandering spirits, not just traces.

Even accounting for weather like this, it was too much.

‘Damn.’

I clenched my teeth.

Not good. No, beyond not good—bad. Filthy bad.

Follow this and I’ll get dragged into something messy.

It was certain. Not conjecture, not imagination—certainty.

Even knowing that.

‘And I still have to go?’

I asked myself.

Knowing all that, do I have to go?

Think rationally.

In that case, the answer should be different.

No matter what, I do not interfere in matters of souls.

That was the first resolution I made when I awoke with my past life’s memories.

A promise I made to myself to live a different life than before.

‘Idiot.’

Knowing all that, I was running.

I’d decided to live a life that didn’t care whether others lived or died.

I’d dreamed of a life far from other people’s deaths—and here I was, moving like a fool before I could think.

No idiot like this idiot.

[Boy.]

Yoo Cheongil’s voice reached me. He drifted along in the air, unhurried, keeping pace.

[What are you planning to do.]

I didn’t answer.

Open my mouth and I’d break my breathing.

[I don’t understand. The you I’ve been watching wouldn’t have cared about something like this.]

He sounded puzzled.

I agreed. Even I thought I was acting strange.

And I knew it better than anyone.

Crack—! I crushed a branch underfoot and stopped after a long run.

The spirit trace ended there.

At the same moment—

‘...Blood.’

A faint, fishy tang slid across the tip of my nose.

An unpleasant scent, and one I felt I’d smelled somewhere before.

Where.

Where had I smelled this rotten stink.

“...Ah.”

I thought for a moment and remembered.

That cave.

The cave from back then, when we ran into that so-called Mountain Ghost.

The cave had smelled like this too.

‘That smell was...’

Blood.

The pooled stink of human blood shed in death.

‘If I can smell it here...’

I slowly lifted my head and looked straight ahead.

“...”

There was a village.

A small village we would have passed by in the carriage, given its location.

We had deliberately passed it by as inappropriate for a rest during our mission.

In that tiny village—

Calamity had taken place.

****

“Young Master Bang...!”

Cheon Eujin and Do Hyeong had followed late. Bang Sungyeon bolting off out of nowhere had shocked them both.

To stop the carriage suddenly and take off running.

The unexpected situation drew a frown between their brows.

Especially for Do Hyeong, more so. Not only had the carriage been stopped ➤ NоvеⅠight ➤ (Read more on our source) without the permission of the man in charge during a mission—

To act alone without explaining the circumstances.

No matter what, that crossed a line.

As Do Hyeong started to say something to Bang Sungyeon—

“Bang Sung—”

He closed his mouth.

So did Cheon Eujin.

Both men, faces gone stiff, scanned ahead.

“This is...”

“What in the—”

They spoke at once.

The village had been turned to a wasteland.

Small though it was, it looked like it might once have been quaint and neatly kept; now it was stained with a choking reek of blood and the marks of a raid.

Bodies, hacked to pieces, lay all over the village.

From their state, it was obvious their deaths had been anything but clean.

“How did this—”

Cheon Eujin began to speak in shock.

“What’s this.”

Someone spoke from inside a house and stepped out.

“Tsk. Well now.”

A rather large man. He looked at the three and made a face as if inconvenienced.

“That’s odd. I was sure we’d make sure there were no witnesses...”

The man spoke nonsense.

Cheon Eujin frowned at him.

Because of the strange thing in the man’s hand.

It was someone’s severed head.

The despair on its face suggested how that moment had gone.

“Who are you?”

Even as Do Hyeong asked, the man ignored him and spoke his own words.

“Hmm... From the look of you, you don’t seem like much. In that case we deal with you first and then report... Hm?”

Just as he moved with a bored look, he focused on the clothes the three wore.

“Wait... Is that...?”

The garments themselves were unremarkable, but a particular embroidery and the emblem on the chest were quite famous in the Central Plains.

It couldn’t be helped. There was only one place in all this wide world that used a crescent emblem for its symbol.

“Blue Moon Sect...?”

Henan’s Blue Moon Sect.

Clothes only they wore. And the peculiar embroidery on two of the three...

“The Small Moon Unit...?”

Garments said to be worn only by Blue Moon’s elites.

“Ah, hell.”

The man’s face twisted the instant he saw it.

“Why is the Small Moon Unit here—!!”

He tried to shout in a panic, but at that moment Do Hyeong drew his sword and charged.

Clang—!

The man hastily raised his weapon and blocked Do Hyeong’s strike.

He barely managed to stop the first cut—

Slice—!

“Uh...?”

His vision blurred.

By the time he registered the strange feeling, his head was already dropping to the ground.

Thud—!

His large body collapsed, and Do Hyeong looked back.

“There are more.”

“...”

At his words, Cheon Eujin spread his senses, wary.

Just as Do Hyeong said, strange presences were hidden all around the village.

‘...An assault?’

It wasn’t simple bandits; from that single exchange with Do Hyeong, it was clear they were martial artists.

‘Why?’

Why? Why would martial artists need to raid a small village like this?

The thought flooded Cheon Eujin’s mind.

More than that—

‘How did Young Master Bang...?’

How had Bang Sungyeon sensed this and run here.

From so far off, at that.

‘I didn’t notice at all.’

From a moving carriage, to sense something this far away and sprint toward it—was that even possible?

‘...’

Unless one was an exceptional master, it was impossible.

And Bang Sungyeon had done it.

“Disciple.”

“Ah, yes...!”

Startled out of his daze by Do Hyeong’s call, Cheon Eujin hurriedly drew his sword.

First they needed to deal with this bizarre situation.

So judged, Cheon Eujin focused—

‘Wait...’

He realized something and widened his eyes.

‘Where is Young Master Bang...?’

Bang Sungyeon had been right in front of them a moment ago.

He was gone.

****

Krrrack—!!

I ripped away the wooden wall in front of me. It was already cracked, so tearing it down wasn’t hard.

“Hoo.”

I wiped a bit of sweat and tossed the broken door outside.

Only then did the inside come into view.

“...”

There were two bodies.

One, a woman’s body, wrecked in several places.

The other, a man’s body, cut in half at the waist.

They looked like husband and wife.

I frowned at them.

Not because the scene was too brutal.

-There, over there... Please, please hear me...

The woman’s desperate plea scraped at my ears.

-Please... Please hear me... God, please...

Look at that—dead, and now she prays.

It would be funny if there were any humor left in me.

Where would it be. I walked carefully, quietly fixing my destination.

That closet?

The woman, in front of that closet, was signaling me like mad.

-Please... If there is a god...

“...”

I turned my steps and went to the closet.

-Ahh...!!

At that, the woman let out a sobbing breath.

I grabbed the doors and tore them off.

Inside, a child was curled up.

“...”

Sleeping? No chance.

I touched his neck. No pulse.

Dead. Just before I came.

I lowered my gaze.

‘A wound.’

He’d been clutching his belly as he “slept.”

When I looked at his hands, blood stained them.

I carefully lifted the child.

There was still warmth, but in a little while it would go cold.

Holding him, I stood there for a moment.

Then—

[Duck.]

Yoo Cheongil spoke.

I bent without hesitation.

KRASH—!!!

An immense crash ripped past over my head.

I looked back.

There stood a bald man gripping a rather large cleaver.

He looked a little startled to see me.

“How did you know?”

He seemed genuinely surprised I’d avoided his strike.

“I hid my presence perfectly...? Strange.”

Whatever he said, I set the child down on a patch of straw with as little blood as possible and slowly straightened.

“Hooo...”

I settled my breathing.

I had to make it as calm as possible.

Then I looked at him and spoke.

“Let me ask one thing.”

“Huh?”

At my words, the man bared his canines, incredulous.

“Ask what? Are you insane? Or can’t you see what’s happening?”

“Why didn’t you kill the child.”

“What?”

“You already knew the child was here. Why didn’t you kill him and waited.”

He already knew the child was hiding in the closet.

Knowing everything, he hadn’t killed him. He’d left him alive.

Then his breath had stopped right as I arrived.

Why.

When I asked for the reason, the man snorted.

As if to say, why ask that.

“It’s fun.”

“Fun?”

“Yeah. Watching him tremble after seeing his parents die right in front of him. That’s real fun.”

“...”

“So I stabbed his belly just enough that he couldn’t run, not enough to kill. Make him shake, then slice him at the end. But what are you? Why are you getting in my way.”

Bit by bit, anger crept into his face.

“Why ruin what I marinated so nicely...”

He squinted at the clothes I wore.

“...Wait, those clothes... the Small Moon...?”

“I’ll promise you one thing.”

Before he finished, I drew my sword.

Then I told him:

“You won’t be able to die even after you’re dead.”

Power gathered in my Moon Eyes, and energy clung to the blade.